Skye (Rainbow Falls Book 1)

by Heather Gray

  “Such as?”

  “Your time in the service. How you ended up on the street.”

  Gideon sucked in air through his teeth. “No soft questions, eh?”

  Sam waited. He’d tried to broach the subject before, but Gideon had always sidestepped it. He had plans for Gideon, though. Where were the tripwires located in Gideon’s past?

  The older man ran a hand along his jaw. “I was Army.”

  Sam nodded. That was on Gideon’s intake form.

  “Chaplain.”

  Wow. He hadn’t seen that coming. “Chaplain?”

  Gideon grimaced. “Hard to believe, I know.”

  “So what happened?”

  Gideon started walking along the border of the field. “I stood beside the beds of too many dying soldiers.”

  Sam kept pace with him. “That had to be rough.”

  “The old line of telling these soldiers and their families that God was in control wore thin after a while. I just didn’t have the words anymore when people came to me for solace.”

  They continued walking, but Sam held his silence.

  “A lot of men came back from war and had nightmares about getting blown up by IEDs. I had nightmares of soldiers floating in nothingness rather than being embraced in the loving arms of their Father. I had nightmares about the dead coming back to life and accusing me of lying to them. I could never find the words to defend myself, either.”

  Sam couldn’t put a comforting hand on Gideon’s shoulder, no matter how much he wanted to. The man’s posture wouldn’t allow for it.

  “I thought I’d be okay once I got back home, but civilian life didn’t agree with me, either. The nightmares kept me up all night. I couldn’t sleep, and I couldn’t function. I was a zombie, and I’d started to believe that I’d led all those soldiers astray. I didn’t want to do that to anyone else, so I left. I didn’t even tell my sister I was leaving. I just… I disappeared. After a while, it got easier to stay that way.”

  “Easy isn’t always right.”

  Gideon’s bark of laughter was dry. “Nah, it ain’t. But it’s easy. Somewhere down inside, I think I decided I deserved the punishment of being isolated, of suffering.”

  “Street life’s no picnic.”

  “Broken ribs, fingers, a foot one time. Living on the street is violent. Every day. Hunger, violence. Judgment. I deserved it. Or thought I did, anyway. Then one day this idiot showed up in my camp and offered me a roof over my head and two squares a day, and all I had to do in return was sit in a Bible class and not get caught fighting. Someone who’d seen bad things, too, but had somehow managed to find faith there rather than lose it.”

  Sam’s throat clogged.

  “You saved my life, man. I owe you.”

  They reversed course and headed back toward the old Silver Heart Motel. There were no words left to say. Silence settled between them, the kind of silence filled with the sound of mutual respect.

  CHAPTER 27

  “Hey. You’re early.” Sam took the decaffeinated coffee she offered. “Want to join me for Bible study?”

  Skye had done a superb job of making sure she didn’t arrive at the shelter until after Sam had concluded his quiet time, but her perfect record was officially blown.

  There was no graceful way out of this, not without admitting she didn’t like going to church, either.

  “Um. Okay.” Hopefully she came across as agreeable but not enthusiastic.

  His eyes laughed at her as he vacated the desk chair for her. He pulled a Bible off a nearby shelf and handed it to her. “I’m starting the book of Joshua.”

  Skye fumbled with the table of contents but tried to play it off. “Using my Bible app has spoiled me.”

  When she got there, he pointed to the spot. “I’ll read verses one through five, and you pick up with six through nine. Then we’ll discuss what it says.”

  Sam still had the rough voice of a former smoker. She’d never asked if he used to smoke. Maybe he’d just yelled a lot. Or maybe it was his natural voice. Either way, it was incongruous. People that read scripture were supposed to sound smooth and sweet-as-honey.

  Her turn came too soon, and she stumbled over the verses.

  When she finished, she folded her hands and rested them on the Bible. “You said you’d rather have the truth about things, right?”

  “Always.”

  “I don’t go to church. I don’t read my Bible. I’m not particularly interested in God, either.”

  “I kind of figured.”

  “If it’s a problem…”

  “It’s not. You’re not required to be a believer to help here. You don’t even have to be a believer to go to church. Can you tell me why, though?”

  Sigh. Of course he was going to ask that. “Huh.”

  “Huh?”

  She stared into ice blue eyes lit by curiosity. “It’s weird. I don’t like people asking me questions. I’m private. Kind of to the extreme. And you ask a lot of questions. I usually get annoyed, even if I don’t show it.”

  “Oh trust me. You show it.” He winked at her.

  Skye shook her head. “Your questions don’t upset me as much as they used to. I don’t know if that means I should answer you or avoid you like the bubonic plague.”

  He chuckled. “Let’s go with the former. I’m not sure I want to be compared to the plague.”

  She picked up the Bible and ran her fingers along the spine. “Tawny and Jette befriended me when I first moved here. They seemed to understand something even I didn’t get. That I was broken. They took me into their group and made me a Rainbow Girl. I would have done anything for them.”

  “They sound like the kind of friends worth keeping.”

  Skye tried to smile, but she was pretty sure she failed to pull it off convincingly. “Yeah, the best. When they invited me to church, I went. It was the natural thing to do. Then I started hearing about this God who loves people, who stays with them forever and always, who never abandons them. My dad was dead, and my mom was… She just wasn’t around much. I didn’t realize how lonely I’d become until Tawny and Jette made sure I wasn’t lonely anymore.”

  She put the Bible down and thumbed through the gilt-edged pages. There was a time when she would have felt guilty about not reading her Bible. No longer, though. Not until recently. “I accepted Christ at VBS when I was thirteen. I don’t know what I expected, but I thought life would get better, you know? God wants only good for His children. Or at least, He’s supposed to. Life didn’t get better, though. It got worse. Still, I held to my faith. I held onto everything I’d heard in church, everything…”

  Skye closed the Bible with a snap. “Anyway. I did the best I could, but then my grandparents took me away from Rainbow Falls, and something bad happened because I wasn’t here to stop it. I just couldn’t see God in that. I couldn’t see Him in the pain and loss, in the pointlessness of it all. He wasn’t there anymore, and I figured every time I thought I’d seen Him in my life up to that point had been an illusion.”

  Sam reached across the desk and rested a hand on hers. “I think of it not so much as seeing God, but more like seeing His fingerprints on different parts of my life. That’s my evidence, the thing that proves He was there with me.”

  She shrugged. “I guess I can work with that. It doesn’t change the facts, though. God wasn’t there anymore, and it seemed like He’d never been there at all. I’d made it up because I’d been so lonely and desperate to have someone there with me.”

  Sam withdrew his hand, and the absence of his touch allowed the coldness to seep back in.

  “Sometimes we go through bad things so God can grow us.”

  Heat surged through her middle and heated her core. Not the warm-fuzzy kind of heat, either. “I’m all grown up. What more does He want?”

  One of the best things about Sam was his steady mood. Whether he felt anger or not, he never displayed it. She didn’t fear her own words when she was around him. She owed him the same courtesy
, didn’t she? He didn’t deserve to be on the receiving end of her ragged and torn-up feelings about God.

  Sam leaned forward, elbows on the desk. “I have all kinds of answers I want to give you, but I’ve been where you’re at. If someone tried spouting off their theology to me, I’d want to deck them. Nobody needs empty platitudes.”

  “You’re not a platitude kind of guy.”

  “Only because I’ve been there. No matter how true a Bible verse is, it feels like a slap in the face if you’re not ready to hear it.”

  Skye laced her fingers together to stop herself from picking at her nail polish. “So if you’re not going to knock me around with your Bible, we’re at an impasse.”

  Sam chuckled. “Knock you around, huh? You give Bible-thumping a whole new meaning. I have an idea, though. You might not be too enthusiastic, but I’d like you to consider it.”

  The same urge that had filled her when she was a kid and had compelled her to do whatever Tawny and Jette asked, compelled her now. “I’m listening.”

  “What time do you start work when you’re not here at Samaritan’s Reach?”

  “Nine, sometimes a little later.”

  Sam sat back, linked his hands together, and put them behind his head in a stretched-out post that emphasized his height and made his muscles all the more defined. “I’d like you to give me thirty days of quiet time. Join me during my morning Bible study for one month.”

  Her breathing stopped, her heart dropped, and her stomach flopped. “Why?”

  “You need to find some real answers, and I can’t think of a better way to help you do that.”

  Just when she needed something to throw, there was nothing at hand.

  Not only had Skye agreed to Sam’s ludicrous plan, but now she was sitting in a staff meeting. One of the perks of volunteering was supposed to be not being forced to deal with inner-office politics. So much for that.

  “Alright everyone, let’s start.” Sam’s voice rang out in the learning center. “We need to brainstorm some fundraising ideas. The food bank is no longer going to be providing vouchers to our men.”

  Gasps filled the room. There were only five staff on-site, and two of those were Sam and Skye. The other three shouldn’t have been able to gasp so loudly.

  “I’ll send an email out to everyone who’s not here today, but I don’t want them to panic, so I’d like us to come up with some ideas I can include in that email.”

  A hand snaked up, and Sam called on the young man. “You don’t need a single fundraiser. You need something that’ll be ongoing, a stream of revenue to supply money for food on a continual basis.”

  Sam nodded. “Definitely. We can do one-time fundraisers, too, but something ongoing would be best.”

  Skye raised her hand next. “You have a table at the local weekend flea market, don’t you? What happens to that money? And the items you sell are all donated, so you have minimal overhead.”

  “It pays for the rental space, but that’s it. The purpose of the flea market hasn’t been to raise money. It’s been about getting our men out into society in a structured setting so they can gain experience interacting with customers. They need to be able to do that before we can send them out on job interviews.”

  Skye bit her bottom lip. Did he realize how much he was missing out on?

  “Go ahead, Skye. Spit it out.”

  “What if you actively sought donations and got people to give you stuff? You’ve been using the flea market to train the men. You haven’t actually tried to make money at it. You could, though, if you put in some effort.”

  Sam drew his hand down the length of his beard, but another part-time staffer spoke up. “The flea market has been Friday through Sunday only, but when I took the men last weekend, the owners said they were expanding their hours to include Wednesday and Thursday. We only do a half-day on Sunday because of church. If we add Wednesday and Thursday and expand Sunday, we could…”

  “We’re not skipping church. The flea market booth will remained closed so the men can attend services.” Sam’s voice was final.

  The staffer continued, “I understand, but what if you left one man at the table and did it on a rotating basis so it’s not the same man each Sunday?”

  Sam shook his head.

  “What about Wednesday and Thursday, then?” Skye couldn’t let his bullheadedness shut down a valuable plan.

  “I’m not sure we make enough money at the table to make more days worthwhile. We barely cover space rental as it is.”

  Skye smiled. Now they were getting into her wheelhouse. “Let me talk to the folks who run the flea market. Maybe I can negotiate a contract with a better rental price.”

  The guy who had first raised his hand spoke up again . “I can ask at my church to see if anybody wants to donate something. I’ll bet a lot of people around town would give items to us if they knew it was going to the men’s food. We could hit up all the churches, the senior citizens’ center, the… I don’t know. There have to be other places, too, right?”

  Energy raced through Skye’s veins. “Yes! Now that the accounting is mostly caught up, I can work on this. I’ll negotiate the rental contract and contact people about donations.”

  Sam inspected the group. “Sounds good. In the meantime, I want everyone to keep thinking of other ways to raise money. We need at least a couple backup plans.

  CHAPTER 28

  Sam sighed as everyone filed out of the room. Everyone except Skye, with her long dark hair and flashing golden eyes. She’d come a long way from the timid woman who’d stared at his tattoos as though they might come to life.

  She held out some business cards to him. “Here.”

  “What are these for?” He took them and read over each one before sliding them into his back pocket.

  “Rose and Ruby run an employment agency, long-term and short-term. They’d like to meet with you to discuss the possibility of helping to place some of the men in jobs. They have some specific concerns, and I told them you would rather they be honest than politically correct.”

  He couldn’t help but smile at the solemn nod that accompanied Skye’s words.

  “The other one is from Sunny. She runs the Stuff & Sunshine store over on Third & Huntley. Give her a call. She might be able to work something out with you so the men can get some clothes appropriate for going on interviews. She’s expecting a call.”

  “You’re awfully well-connected for someone who’s been out of Rainbow Falls as long as you have.”

  “I’m not sure connected is the right word, but we can go with that if you’d like.”

  “I got a call from Fern and a visit from Jette. I’m pretty sure neither of those would have happened if it wasn’t for you.”

  “That wasn’t me. It was Tawny’s birthday. This is what she wanted for her gift.”

  “Why?”

  Skye dropped her gaze and fisted her fingers together before releasing them and dropping her hands to her sides. “I think she’s afraid I’ll leave again. When I left last time, they all lost contact with me. Nobody knew where I was.”

  “Couldn’t you have reached out to them? Social media… Something?”

  Her mouth dropped down in a frown, and dark clouds passed over her eyes. “It was easier to deal with my new life if I cut all ties to my old one. I’m not saying it was right, but I coped the best way I knew how at the time.”

  And when she’d decided to run away from that new life, she ran straight back to Rainbow Falls. Buried in that truth was a lesson about who Skye was. He didn’t have time to dig for it at present, though. Instead, he gave her a grin. “Any other friends you want to tell me about? Maybe Tawny’s birthday wish included someone who owns a grocery store?”

  Skye chuckled, and her eyes cleared to their normal bright golden-brown. “Not to my knowledge, but I’ll see what I can do about getting items donated for the flea market.”

  She started for the office before stopping and turning back to him. “You need to g
et a sign made for your table, too. Something that says where the proceeds are going. If people realize their money is going to a worthy cause, they’re likely to be more generous, don’t you think? I’m pretty sure I read that in a marketing magazine somewhere.”

  “A tabletop sign or a big tablecloth-type-sign?”

  She waved her hand through the air. “Never mind. I’ll look into it. I have an idea.”

  Sam watched her go, torn between two worlds. In one, he had a fierce desire to protect her. In the other, he was so proud of the strides she’d made away from the frightened woman she’d once been. What he felt for her went deeper than the normal boss-volunteer relationship. He couldn’t deny it any longer. He was treading treacherous water where Skye was concerned.

  He’d had relationships before. Sort of. He’d been single, young, and a Marine. He’d never lacked for female companionship, though they hadn’t all qualified as real relationships. Regret was easy to come by if he opened the door to it. Those things were part of his past, though. They didn’t have permission to cast a shadow on his present.

  If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

  Still… Temptation smoldered beneath the surface with every breath he took. He found himself tucking his hands in his pockets more and more, and it had less and less to do with not wanting to intimidate Skye. These days, it was all about not reaching out and touching her. Brushing a hand along her cheek, feeling the silkiness of her hair between his fingers, pulling her into a hug, wondering if the base of her throat was as warm and inviting as it looked…

  “Done in here, Boss?” Gideon’s voice broke into Sam’s reverie.

  “Done?”

  “Your meeting? It’s over, right? Can we have the learning center back? Matt has a math test, and a couple other guys have some work to catch up on, too.”

  Sam took a deep breath to clear his head. “Sure. It’s all yours. Let me know if you need anything.”

  Sam stayed away from the office for the remainder of the day. He needed to let Skye work. Besides, his attention was required elsewhere.